Safety razor



Dec. 7, 1943. Y sfi 2,336,047

SAFETY RAZOR Filed Dec. 4, 1941 IN VENTOR.

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Patented Dec. 7, 1943 SAFETY RAZOR Nicholas Testi, Boston, Mass, assignor to Gillette Safety Razor Company, Boston, Mass, a corporation of Delaware Application December 4, 1941, Serial No. 421,539

8 Claims.

This invention relates to safety razors. In certain aspects it consists in a safety razor constructed and arranged to receive a blade with a protective cover in place thereon and to advance the cutting edge portion or portions of the blade so as to expose them beyond the outline of the cover when the blade is positioned for shaving.

In the handling of safety razor blades under commercial conditions of distribution and in the more or less casual treatment they receive by the user the extremely fine keen edge of the blade is likely to be dulled by being brought into contact with its wrappings or with parts of the razor before the blade can be actually clamped in shaving position in the razor. For these reasons the best and most skillful efforts of the manufacturer in sharpening blades are often made of no avail because of the difiiculty of preserving intact the very fragile and delicate structure of a blade which has been brought to the keenest possible shaving edge.

With these conditions in View an important object of the present invention is to provide for safety razor blades or blade assemblies a novel protective cover normally projecting over the cutting edge of the blade, or of both cutting edges of a double-edged blade assembly, and protecting the same from direct contact until after the blade has been actually placed in the safety razor by the user and preferably until the user undertakes to clamp the parts of the safety razor to clamp the blade in shaving position.

I have discovered that the desired results may be achieved by dividing the blade longitudinally so that its two halves or sections which are originally located or packed as a unitary assembly Within the outline of the cover may be laterally separated and advanced to expose the cutting edge or edges of the blade beyond the outline of the cover as the blade sections are moved into shaving position in the safety razor. In applying the invention to double-edged blades the blades may be divided into two similar half sections each with an outer cutitng edge. The blade is packed with the sections in contracted or contiguous position with their cutting edges enclosed by the protective cover and means is provided in the safety razor for simultaneously encountered in practice, to insure positive and accurate adjustment of the blade section with respect to the cover and to provide an insulating and cushioning medium between the blade and the clamping elements of the razor preventing danger of breakage and obviating electrolytic corrosion of the blade.

These and other features of the invention will be best understood and appreciated from the following description of a preferred embodiment thereof, selected for purposes of illustration and shown in the accompanying drawing, in which:

Fig. 1 is a plan view of the protected blade;

Fig. 2 is a similar view showing the upper cover portion removed;

Fig. 3 is a plan View of the partially separated blade sections in position upon the guard member of a safety razor, a portion of the upper cover section being shown as removed;

Fig. 4 is a similar view showing the blade sections in fully exposed condition, the cover portion intact and portions of the cap in cross-section;

Fig. 5 is a view in end elevation of the safety razor corresponding to Fig. 3; and

Fig. 6 is a view in end elevation of the complete safety razor in shaving condition.

The illustrated embodiment of the invention shows its application to a razor designed to employ a double-edged blade. The blade sections it are similar incontour and assembled in reverse position and in definite predetermined arrangement. They may be constructed of narrow ribbon steel substantially one-half the width of that now required for a standard double-edged blade and 0.004 to 0.007 inch in thickness, for example. Each blade section I0 is sharpened at its outer longitudinal edge H and is provided with corner notches forming elongated unsharp ened end portions l2. These are defined in part by obliquely diverging inner edges [3 so that in effect a V-shaped notch is provided at each end of the complete blade assembly in its major axis. The inner edge of each section is cut away so that together they form in outline a straight central longitudinal slot lying symmetrically in the major axis of the assembled blade and having at both ends inner converging edges M. In each blade section is provided a pair of spaced circular holes l5 which are useful in holding the blade during certain manufacturing steps upon it and in the step of supplying its protective cover.

Th cover itself may be of cardboard, heavy paper, felt or other sheet material and, as shown in Figs. 1 and 2, may comprise an upper leaf 20, lower leaf 2! and a connecting hinge portion 22 at one end. The outline of the cover is such as to mask the entire body portion of both blade sections, extending slightly beyond both the cutting edges l i so as to enclose and completely protect them. The cover is longitudinally slotted at 24 in registration with the inner edges of the blade sections and so as to expose the inner converging edges It at the right-hand end of the blade sections and an adjacent part of each blade section. The inner edges of the slot 24 are centrally and circularly recessed to accommodate the shank of the safety razor cap as will be presently explained. The slot 24- is interrupted near one end by a bridge portion 25 and beyond this connecting bridge in the left edge of the cover is a deep notch exposing the diverging edges I3 and adjacent portions of the blade end sections. It will be seen, therefore, that both blade sections are entirely covered except for small portions including and adjacent to the converging pairs of edges 53 and id. The hinged portion 22 of the cover extends also about the right-hand end of the blade sections, while at the other end of the g blade sections the end edge of the cover coincides substantially with the unsharpened end edges of the blade sections. Both sides Or leaves of the cover 2i? are provided with circular perforations '23 registering with the corresponding perforations is of the blade sections. As already explained the blade sections it may be located by inserting gauge pins in the holes l5 and may be assembled with the covers by locating them both upon gauge pins extending through these holes l5 and In practice the cover is held yieldingly or in temporary slipping engagement with the surface of the blade sections by spots or a coating of oil or grease and thus the members of the blade assembly are maintained in position predetermined in accordance with the razor with which it is to be used.

One appropriate form of safety razor for employing the protected blade above described is shown in Figs. 2-6. It includes an underlying blade-clamping member or guard carried by a handle Projecting above the surface of the guard member which is convex in contour, are aligned studs 3-2 and 33. These are located in the major axis of the guard member 30 in longitudinal alignment and extend a substantial distance above its face. As shown in Fig. 3 the studs are elongated and the right-hand end of each stud is con-vexed or more or less wedgeshaped while the le t-hand end of each stud is substantially square. In width the studs 32 and correspond substantially with the width of the slot between toe two blade sections It and the slot 2% in cover 2-Zi. Accordingly the protected blade may be placed upon the upper surface of the guard member at with the stud 32, which is the longer of the two studs, projecting into the internal slot formed between the two blade sections and passing through the slot 24 of the protective cover. In this position the blade is displaced longitudinally toward the right upon the guard from its shaving position and the convex end of the stud 33 is located adjacent to the diver ing surface 525 of the two blade sections.

The user is now required to slip the protected blade-toward the left, causing the convex end of the stud to engage the diverging edges l3 of the blade sections and to pry the two sections outwardly and apart. This is the position of the parts shown in Fig. 3, the left-hand end of the blade sections being fully separated, while the stud 32 has not yet begun to act upon their righthand end. It will be noted that in the separating movement of the blade sections it the cutting edges l l have been carried outwardly beyond the edges of the protective cover 2%. In the continued bodily movement of the protected blade and its cover toward the left the convex end of the stud 32 now becomes effective and the righthand end of the two blade sections are separated and forced apart. The sharpened edges H of the blade are thus fully exposed and lie in parallel relation outside the edges of the cover and in shaving position upon the guard member 30.

The safety razor includes a cap 35 having an inner concave blade-shaping face, downwardly projecting lugs 35 at each corner and a centrally threaded shank 3b which may be engaged and drawn down by the threaded spindle 31 usually found in safety razors of this type. The lugs 35 extend downwardly through notches provided for them in the ends of the guard member as in such position as positively to limit the longitudinal movement of the blade sections by engaging their elongated unsharpened end portions l2. The blade sections are thus positively held in shaving position between the studs 32 and on the one hand, and the lugs 35, on the other hand. They have arrived accurately positioned in their shaving position in the razor and it has been unnecessary, and in fact practically impossible, for anything to make contact with the now fully exposed shaving edges.

It will be noted that the two elongated blade sections it are identical in shape and are assembled in reverse position within their protective cover. The shape of their inner unsharpened edges is such as to form the central slot with convergent end edges and these with the convergent external edges define a pair of spaced abutments projecting toward each other and contacting in the line of the'rnajor axis of the assembled blade. The protective cover, of course, substantially encloses the assembled blade sections except in certain areas givin access to the external convergent edges is and the internal convergent edges id. It will be further noted that when the blade is initially presented to the guard member the stud is located closer to the external converging edges it than the stud 32 is to the internal converging edges i i. Th result is that when the blade is slipped toward the left on the guard the action of the stud 33 in separating the left-hand end of the blade sections is substantially completed before the stud 32 begins to separate the right-hand end of the blade sections.

The studs 32 and 33 are of equal width and their longitudinal faces are located in alignment. When the protected blade is initially presented to the guard 38 it is so located that the stud 32 passes up into the slot 2:3. Thi stud 32 is of substantial length and has an important function in guiding the protected lade as the latter is moved toward the left upon the face of the guard. It is important to guide the blade so that the external convergent edges iii are engaged symmetrically by the convex end face of the stud 33. The stud 1-32 also guides the blade sections sothat their unsharpened elongated end portions {2 pass within the end notches of the guard which'are subsequently to receive the downwardly extending lugs 35 of the cap member. While both of the lugs 32 ar herein shown as projecting-from the guard member, it is within the scope of the invention to locate both of these studs on either of the blade-clamping members or to locate one stud on each of the said members.

The blade herein illustrated and described is not claimed in this application, but has been made the subject matter of a divisional application, Ser. No. 482,949, filed April 14, 1943.

Having thus disclosed my invention and described in detail on embodiment thereof for purposes of illustration and not in any limiting sense, I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent:

1. A safety razor having co-operating bladeclamping members with aligned studs projecting from one of said members, the said studs havin parallel longitudinal blade-locating faces and convex end faces, in combination with a protected blade assembly consisting of elongated blade sections similar in shape and having outer sharpened edges and inner unsharpened edges disposed in contact with each other, and a protective cover extending initially beyond the sharpened edges of both blade sections, the said sections being adapted to be separated by longitudinal movement against the convex end faces of said studs and to be held in exposed shaving poition in the razor by engagement with the longitudinal faces thereof.

2. A safety razor having co-operating bladeclamping members, an elongated stud having parallel side faces and a convex end face located wholly between the ends of one of said bladeclamping members, in combination with a protected blade assembly comprising sections internally separated by a longitudinal slot and having a correspondingly slotted cover, the said protected blade assembly being shaped to fit over the said stud and to slide longitudinally thereon in reaching shaving position.

3. A safety razor having a blade-supporting member slotted at both ends and provided with projecting blade-separating means, a cap member with blade-locating lugs which project through the slots of said supporting member, and a protected blade assembly comprising separable sections and a slotted cover shaped to receive said blade-separating means, the said means acting to advance the blade sections outwardly until their edges are exposed beyond the cover and until they are arrested by engagement with the lugs of the cap member.

4. A safety razor having blade-clamping members presenting opposed curved faces for holding a sectional blade in a condition of transverse curvature, and elongated studs projecting from one of said members and presenting convex ends both facing in the same direction in the razor and side walls disposed in longitudinal alignment, in combination with a blade comprising similar sections aassembled and enclosing a recess between them equal in width to said studs and defined at its ends by converging edges, whereby the assembled blade sections may be placed in fiat condition over said studs and then separated by endwise movement prior to being clamped.

5. A safety razor and sectional blade assembly of the character set forth in claim 4, wherein the blade sections are guided in their endwise movement by the aligned walls of the said elongated studs. 7

6. A safety razor having blade-clamping members with opposed faces having portions unobstructed and permitting transverse movement of blade sections thereon, and aligned blade-separating studs mounted on one of said members and having convexed edges facing longitudinally in the same direction, in combination with blade sections of similar shape assembled in predetermined relation and meeting in edges converging to a vertex in line with the said studs.

7. A safety razor having blade-clamping members with opposed face having portions unobstructed and permitting transverse movement of blade sections thereon, and longitudinally spaced blade-separating studs mounted on one of said members with convex edges directed in the same direction, in combination with blade sections similar in shape and assembled in predetermined relation With spaced pairs of converging edges, said sections being arranged symmetrically in edgewise contact with each other and being movable longitudinally as a unit on one of said blade-clamping members, one of said studs being located nearer to one set of converging edges than the other stud is located with respect to the second set of converging edges of the blade sections when the blade assembly is presented to the razor.

8. A safety razor having a blade-supporting member with a centrally arranged Wedge projection, in combination with a blade assembly com rising a cover cut away in alignment with said Wedge projection, and a pair of similar blade sections lightly secured to the cover and together presenting a convergent recess to the apex of said wedge projection.

NICHOLAS TESTI. 

